The cover of the Sep. 16, 1916 issue of The Saturday Evening Post displayed a Norman Rockwell painting that has become a classic and is known as Redhead Loves Hatty Perkins. The picture includes a young redheaded boy dragging his books behind him as he discovers that someone has chalked the words “Redhead loves Hatty Perkins” on the fence. He stands there with a clinched fist and hanging out of the back of his pocket is nothing other than a slingshot.
The slingshot, also called a catapult in the UK, a ging in Australia, kattie in South Africa, bean shooter, flip or tirador, really only came into existence in the 1800's, well after firearms and bow and arrows. This may seem surprising but the slingshot includes one element that was not introduced until 1839—which is vulcanized rubber developed by Charles Goodyear. As most will appreciate, a slingshot is a small, Y-shaped frame held in the hand with two natural-rubber or elastic strips attached to the uprights. The other ends of the elastic strips lead back to a pocket that holds the projectile. The other hand is used to grasp the pocket and draw it back to the desired extent to provide power for the projectile—up to a full span of the arm with sufficiently long bands.
By 1860, the slingshot had gained a reputation as a juvenile weapon but they have also been used for hunting small game. For much of their early history, slingshots were a “do-it-yourself” item, typically made from a forked branch to form the “Y” shaped handle, with rubber strips sliced from items such as inner tubes or other sources of good vulcanized rubber and firing suitably sized stones, lead musket balls, buckshot, steel ball bearings, air gun pellets or small nails. As a hunting weapon, slingshots are suitable for taking game such as quail, pheasant, rabbit, dove, and squirrels. Placing multiple balls in the pouch produces shotgun type effect, such as firing multiple BB or pellets at a time for hunting small birds. With the addition of a suitable rest, the slingshot can also be used to shoot arrows or bolts, allowing the hunting of medium-sized game at short range. When used for firing arrows or bolts, the slingshot is more typically referred to as a slingbow.
The slingbow has some advantages over a traditional bow and arrow. One such advantage is that the slingbow is much smaller than a traditional bow or cross bow. The slingbow can easily be stored in a pocket or backpack. Thus, the slingbow allows a hunter to move more freely, especially in tight spots or wooded locations with many branches that may snag on the bow. In addition, because the slingbow uses rubber bands or strips as the source of power rather than the intrinsic tension of a length of wood, it is more suitable for a do-it-yourself repair if the bands break. It's also possible to increase the power and speed of the arrow in flight by adding multiple numbers of bands. A traditional bow has a fixed power granted to it by the length and type of wood used in the construction and the arm length of the archer to some extent. As such, slingbow hunting, fishing and simple target shooting and competition has found a market for the hunter and sportsman. However, what is needed in the art is a nock that is suitable for arrows and bolts that are being shot from a slingbow. Such a nock can improve the reliability, ease of use and safety of shooting projectiles with a slingbow.